New Manufactured Home Repair

This is the week of our New Manufactured Home Repair, also known as trimming out the inside of the home. We have been waiting for more than three weeks for this.

New Manufactured Home Repair
Monday, September 9, 2019

Happily, as we were driving from the hotel where we gave ourselves a break last night, the new manufactured home repair technician called us saying he was on the property. We told him we were about 15 minutes out. When we got there, he was already at work inside.

David is standing in front of the repair technician's truck.

The company we bought the home from told us they would send a team for our new manufactured home repair from the factory. The team they sent is a team of one man. I asked him about the team. He said he is the team. Every now and then they will send out a second person with him, but normally it is just him. He believes it will take the better part of this week to fix the home because of all of the cracks. What we don't understand is why there are so many cracks and breaks. The transport team had to move our home an hour outside of San Antonio.

Sidebar: Back in 1992, our family was living in a brand new singlewide mobile home. We moved to Colorado Spring, Colorado from El Paso, Texas and had our home pulled up there. When it arrived, there was not one crack. Nothing was broken or needed fixing. The team they sent out had the home set up on blocks and hooked up to all utilities in one day and we moved into it the next day.

Back to present day: Shortly after our new manufactured home repair person got there, our regular contractors arrived as well. Today, they are working on the two garden sheds for David's tools. One of the sheds will have a small sauna and an area for exercise equipment so they are cutting holes for windows and doors. Tomorrow they will go back to building raised garden beds.

The generator team showed up about an hour later. Hopefully, they will get the generator finished today.

We still need the portable potty company to show up and pump that awful thing. Well, it turns out someone called in sick so the potty company never showed up. We texted the guy and he said they would be out first thing Tuesday morning. It is now Tuesday morning at 9:30am and no one has shown up yet. There is a mountain of disgustingness in there from all of the people including contractors using it. It is so disgusting that I want to die each time I have to go in there.

It would be a miracle if the water company would show up today and hook us up to water. Our water tank is almost empty again. It costs us between $700 and $900 each time we have water trucked out to us. The company that brings it is located in Austin.

The water company did not show up.

The generator team had to dig up all the piping they buried last weekend as they ran out of parts to fit it. They spent the day doing that and replacing it with other piping. The machines are still out there so they are not finished yet.

The yellow gas line had to be changed out for the grey line on the generator.

The yellow gas line is now in the sand next to the propane tank.

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Lots of floating and taping going on in our new manufactured home.

Happy Tuesday! It has been quite the day. The trim out "team of one" arrived early and got to work floating and taping cracks in the walls and ceiling and even sprayed some texture.

Our regular contractors worked on raised garden beds and the sheds out behind our manufactured home.

The contractors are making more raised garden beds.

The potty man finally showed up around 10am so it is nice and fresh for a portable potty.

The outhouse is close to our shed shack. I sure hope we can get rid of it soon.

Of course, the water company did not show up again today to hook up the meter. All of the blue flags are there waiting. In the meantime, we are out of water in our water tank. All of the contractors have been using it and so have we to shower and do laundry. We called this afternoon and the gal who took the order said they would be here next Monday. I told her we are out of water and need it. She then said we could have it on Thursday for an extra fee of course. She said no to tomorrow as they are all booked up.

David marked the place where he wants the water meter. The water company told David he had to put out a blue marker so he grabbed the only thing blue that he had.

So guess who did not get to wash her hair or her body tonight? (Or tomorrow night, for that matter.) Fun, fun.

Our dogs need to be bathed as well. We have the shampoo but no water. I am truly sick of living like this. I would love to be able to cook something healthy instead of eating nasty fast food three times a day. I would love to open my beautiful new refrigerator and pull a piece of fruit and a cold drink. I would love to use one of the tubs in our manufactured home instead of showering with a hose when we have water.

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Happy Wednesday! Today was a pretty good day all around. We got up early this morning to work on the computer. I put up three pages on this website under the recipe section. Then we got ready to go into the office. The trim out technician was here a little after 7am to work on our new manufactured home and he got a lot accomplished today.

My living room is command central as the trim out technician fixes all of the cracks our brand new manufactured home suffered on the one hour trip to the farm. It is a mess.

He is painting the manufactured home where he floated and taped and put up texture earlier in the week.

We headed off to the office. On the way, we called the Transport Company and they told us that our water meter would be hooked up tomorrow! Yay!

David got a lot of work done at the office. My main job was to clean up the broken Dreambox I received a few weeks ago to make room for the two new pieces they are sending. I received an email yesterday saying the new parts have shipped and will be here next Monday, September 16.

The main part is fine and so is the right swing door. The left swing door was broken to bits during transport. I conveyed this to the company but they would not believe me that it was the left swing door. They told me it was the right swing door. But the broken board had a sticker on it that clearly said left swing door.

So I collapsed one of the tables in my office and moved the two pieces against the wall where the table had been. Then I went out in our retail store where the broken piece was being kept in a corner for almost a month and slid that down the hall and out of sight of the customers. It was left out in the store because I thought the transport truck would take it back but the Dreambox company said I get to keep all of the broken pieces. Yay. Hopefully this time the pieces will arrive safely.

When you pay over $3,000.00 for a really cool piece of functional furniture, you expect it to arrive perfectly. I realize mistakes happen, but it should not have taken this long for this to be resolved. I sent emails and photos to the company for two weeks before being told that they would send me two more pieces.

After that, I added a few new pages to my other website, Mrs. David's Garden Seeds® Heirloom Seeds. (9/28/21 -- I no longer have this website, just davidsgardenseeds.com).

On the way home, we got a call from the Transport Company who said a guy was out at our place inspecting things and said we got our water meter. David immediately called to cancel the $900.00 water delivery for tomorrow. We arrived at the farm about ten minutes later and, sure enough, our water meter was there!

Our water meter was installed today. We still have no water but at least the meter is there.

The transport guy told us he would have his team come to the farm on Friday and hook up the water to the house and to the septic tank.

While we were visiting with the transport guy, the Propane guy showed up to fill up our propane tank so we now have a fully filled tank. The generator guys still have to come out and fire up the generator to see if it works.

The Propane tank got filled this afternoon!

We received a rechargeable pool vacuum from Amazon today. I have another just like it but it is packed away in one of four storage sheds in San Antonio. The pool keeps getting a ton of sand blown into it. The filter is working but there is more and more sand each day and I cannot keep up with it. I plugged the vacuum in to charge. Hopefully, I will get to work on the pool tomorrow.

More good news. After we got back from town this evening with ice and gasoline, I decided I had to wash. I had to use a gallon of spring drinking water but my body and hair are nice and clean. I took the gallon of water into the camp shower with a large cup and took a good shower. I feel so clean.

I wonder if something good will happen tomorrow...Below is a photo of the moon coming up tonight before dark. On a positive note, we got little sprinkles from dark clouds overhead most of the day at the farm. They were enough to make me feel cool and to remind me that our Heavenly Father loves us despite all of the craziness we are going through.

The moon came out early this evening above the shed.

Thursday, September 12, 2019

Good morning and Happy Thursday! The morning started before 5am when I woke up noticing the light was on in the shed shack where I had been sleeping. David was up, working on his computer. He couldn't sleep. That ruined it for me. I have now been up for over three hours and I am so tired.

The trim out guy got here around 7:20am. There is so much more to do in the manufactured home that I think he will be with us all of next week, too. I went to talk to him. He said he will be close to being finished today but he will not be here tomorrow if he doesn't finish. He said Palm Harbor Homes is pulling him off of our job and having him help a coworker tomorrow so it means another weekend will go by with us stuck in the shed.

The air feels better outside. It is 71 degrees Fahrenheit and I think the air feels better because the humidity is down. It is bright and sunny and should get up to 94 degrees today.

Water Company employees finally got our water hooked up and turned on. They tested it and then they told us it was done, turned it off at the shutoffs, and left.

Around 8:30am, the transport company called and said they are sending a team to our house this morning to hook up our water and septic a day early. That is nice but we still have no generator power and no keys to the house.

The team of two got here around 10am and they are working to hook up the water and septic. I was excited but upon hearing that it won't matter because we still won't get in our manufactured home, I am now upset and disgusted with Palm Harbor Homes once again.

David contacted the project manager at the home factory and let her know how displeased we are to being so close but having to wait until Monday or even later in the week for the technician to finish out our house. She changed her plans and said the technician would be back tomorrow.

To be fair, tomorrow, our manufactured home has been sitting here on our property for four weeks and we are still not living in it because the home company will not allow us to live in it as they take too long to get everything done.

If they okay the generator, they still have to bring and install the air conditioner, build some decks, put up skirting, redo the driveway that so many contractors and others have destroyed and give us some outside stairs so we can get into our manufactured home once they give us our house keys. That is right. They will not allow us to have the keys to our manufactured home because they have not completed the work. They know we are living in a shed and they are still dragging their feet.

Back to the water team. They were here for almost five hours. They laid the pipe from the meter and hooked it to the water pipes on the house. Then they did the same for the septic tank. They tested it out in the house and then they left.

So we went to turn the outside hose connection attached to the house and nothing happened. David went to investigate and found five shut off valves for the water all the way out to the road that runs in front of our manufactured home. The water team shut them off so we couldn't use the water. Can you imagine? We waited for more than two months, paid $2000.00, ran out of water in our tank and when they finally say that we are all hooked up, they turned it off.

David went through and found the five shut offs and took care of that. We are paying for this water and we own the land so we can have our water that we desperately need.

We tried to get in touch with the generator guy but he didn't answer the phone or texts until this evening. He said he was busy doing another job and would be here Friday morning. That is good but it also means that we have to go until maybe sometime next week before they will bring us our air conditioner and allow us to go into the home. The electric company won't be putting in our poles and turning on the electric until the middle of November so we had to install an $18,500.00 generator and it still hasn't been turned on.

I got in the pool to vacuum it this afternoon and it was filled with a ton of sand. I got a lot of it up but the vacuum needed to be charged again. Won't matter anyway because our neighbor filled the final 20 raised garden beds tonight. That fills the pool with fine sand. Also, the wind blows the sand around a lot out here, also depositing fine sand into the pool. We really needed to grow some grass and plants but we have not had the water to do so. Now we can get started with some of it. I sure hope tomorrow is a good day and the home gets finished.

Friday, September 13, 2019

This morning, the trim out guy arrived around 7:15am to finish up the manufactured home.

More laundry in our tiny portable washer today. It washes pretty good and has a good spinner.

I started doing laundry around 8am. Since we didn't have water all week until yesterday afternoon, there was quite a laundry pile. I did seven loads, washing them in the mini washer and then hanging them up to dry.

We waited for the generator guy to show up since he said he would be here first thing in the morning. He showed up at 11:30am. After an hour, he left without starting the generator. He just couldn't get it started so no electricity again. He called us shortly thereafter, saying he left to get a part as there was a part missing and that he would be right back. It is now 8:16pm and we are still waiting for him.

The trim out guy finished up around 3:30pm. He called us in for a walk through. He did a lot and it looks good. The refrigerator was wrapped so we could not open it until today when he cut the binding. The refrigerator side door handle is broken off at the bottom. The freezer part is fine. The trim out guy said we would have to call Whirlpool for a repair. Swell.

He still needs to fix the trim in the living room behind the front door and the mirror that was broken during transport still has not been replaced, not to mention he needs to fix the crack across the closet in the bedroom where the huge crack was. Apparently, he did not open the closet door and notice it. He is coming back on Monday. Meanwhile, we had to sign off on the home and that required almost as many signatures and initials as the day we closed on the manufactured home four weeks ago today.

Meanwhile, we tried to find some church friends who would help us move a few things tomorrow from storage so we could move into the house instead of sleeping another night in the shed. Two still have not answered us and some others have church things to do.

Knowing we have been living in a shed for three weeks, you would think as a ministry to fellow church members, they would be happy to help us get into the manufactured home with just a few pieces of furniture until we can get movers next week.The truth is that people have their own plans and nobody really cares about others as long as they are comfortable in their own homes with air conditioning.

We finally found two men who could spare a few hours. By the way, we always pay those who help us and we pay well. We don't expect folks to volunteer their time. Thank you Andy and Tim for making time to help us get out of that shed!

I am upset right now that the electric company won't hook up our power, that the $18,000.00 generator won't turn on, that our home has been here for 28 days and still is not ready, and that we have a rickety wooden stair set to get in and out that wobbles and has splinters. So far, the country has not been very welcoming. I am definitely sorry we chose Palm Harbor Homes instead of building.

Saturday, September 14, 2019

David got up early to drive into San Antonio to pick up a U-Haul. He met the two men at the storage facility, loaded up a reclining love seat, a mattress, table and chairs, and a lot of boxes.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, I vacuumed the manufactured home. That was quite a job. I was a sweaty, drenched mess. It is so hot in this manufactured home that even with all of the windows open early in the morning, all I did was sweat.

Around 10am, the generator guy showed up with a new part for the generator that he and his buddy had made. He got the generator going and then tried to turn on the power in the manufactured home. Most of it actually came on but some of the fuse box is labeled wrong. Turns out there is a short in the master closet and the master bathroom so there is no electricity there. The cook top works fine, but the microwave and the oven do not work. He said the transport team would have to send an electrician to fix it.

Also, the transport team needs to send our air conditioner. We are dying in here. The insulation in manufactured homes is really good. They hold heat.

We took back the U-Haul and stopped for a 2pm lunch at IHOP. Then on to Home Depot where we bought a window unit air conditioner. We picked up more boxes from storage and then stopped at Walmart for some eggs, cheese, butter, etc.

By the time we got home, we were tired and hurting. David installed the window unit in the media room. He put up a blanket in between the media room and the kitchen to keep the cool air in there. It felt pretty good through the night, but the rest of the house is just miserable.

The harvest moon and the silhouette of the internet dish on the shed.

The harvest moon tonight is beautiful out here! You can see the dark outline of the internet dish on the green shed, our shed shack home.

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Sunrise on the farm with the portable potty and the water tank. #reallife

Good morning from the farm. We slept very well in the media room last night with the window air conditioner unit. Around 3am, I woke up and went to the master bedroom to see if it had cooled off. It was still pretty warm, even with the windows open. I tried going to sleep on the mattress. I dozed off and woke up super hot so I went back to the cool media room and finished off the night there.

In the morning, we cooked our own breakfast for the first time in almost four weeks. We had egg, mushroom, and cheese on tortillas with coffee. Surprisingly, the house was still hot, even though we had every window open and the air outside felt fairly cool. This manufactured home is well insulated.

We got ready for church and had to leave an hour before starting time since we live so far away now. We had a good service and then went to pick up some of our house items at the office and at the storage facility. We also hit Home Depot for some hoses. Then we went to lunch at Luby's. I had the roast turkey with new potatoes and corn. It was so good.

Then we came back to a very hot manufactured home and fell asleep in the media room. My body hurts and I am so tired. There is so much to do but it is just too hot to do it. I wonder if we will get any TV channels out here. Streaming takes a long time. The high speed internet we have out here is a joke. Every few seconds, the video stops and spins round and round and then starts again. It is very frustrating to go from the highest speed internet that AT&T offers to a satellite dish that charges way more than AT&T but won't work. Gotta love the country life with the house wired backwards, no air conditioning, power only by generator, and crazy high heat.

Let's hope tomorrow brings some positive news about getting the air conditioner, and having the wiring fixed as well as finishing up the cosmetic stuff the guy did not do last week.

The full moon looks awesome against the pink clouds this evening.

The full moon came out early this evening before dark and looks amazing against the clouds.

Return from New Manufactured Home Repair to Our Small Farm

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